A curious television commercial aired across the U.S. last month that, until its final few seconds, was indistinguishable from an ad for cigarettes — even though such advertising has been banned from broadcast TV for four decades.

In the television spot, the “cigarette” smoke, ash tip and flame look real. The carton looks authentic. The man smoking it looks satisfied.

The smoke, however, is vapor. The ash tip, plastic. The flame, simulated. The “cigarette” is a so-called electronic cigarette — in this case, an NJOY King, the first smokeless, nicotine-delivering, cigarette-like object that (at least according to its manufacturer) looks and feels and “smokes” like the real thing. Television commercials for NJOY Kings began running nationally in early December, making it the first smoking ad to run since Jan. 1, 1971, when Virginia Slims ran one final commercial a minute before the midnight deadline during The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. (President Nixon had signed legislation banning cigarette ads on TV and radio the year before.)

E-cigarettes, invented in 2003, currently account for less than 1% of the $80 billion U.S. cigarette market. But they are growing rapidly: UBS projects that sales, which have doubled every year since 2008, will reach $1 billion in 2013. Numbers like that have put Big Tobacco on notice. “Consumption of e-cigs may overtake traditional cigarettes in the next decade,” predicts Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog. “And they’ll only evolve and improve as time goes forward — at far less risk. The technology portion of it is sort of like Apple. This is just Version 1.”

The Birth of the E-Cigarette

If e-cigarettes do start to take significant market share away from traditional cigarette makers, they’ll likely be led by NJOY, which has captured about a third of the e-cigarette market. The company was founded in 2006 by patent lawyer Mark Weiss, who had discovered an electronic cigar while traveling through China the year before. The technology was crude, but Weiss saw a business opportunity. Four years later, his brother Craig, also a patent attorney, took over as CEO.

The company’s strategy and professed ideals are to some extent a function of the fact that Craig Weiss doesn’t smoke at all. In short, NJOY claims it isn’t trying to create new smokers. It doesn’t market its product to children under 18, and it became the first independent e-cigarette maker to partner with the We Card program, which helps enforce the legal smoking age at convenience stores in the U.S. It doesn’t sell flavors like piña colada or bubble gum, only traditional menthol. And Weiss says his company is only going after current smokers, the 45 million Americans who light up on a regular basis.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 69% of smokers want to quit completely, and many of them are looking for alternatives. “Can you think of another consumer product in the world that the people who are buying it, while they’re buying it, are thinking, ‘God, I wish I wasn’t buying this?’ ” asks Weiss.

Many smokers try to quit for the obvious health benefits and the cost savings of not lighting up. For decades, tobacco has been the leading cause of preventable disease globally, and state and excise taxes have pushed prices of cigarette packs in places like Illinois and New York to upwards of $10 and $12 each.

But NJOY discovered something that smokers dislike almost as much as the high cost and the gloomy health implications. “Odor is a big thing for smokers,” says Weiss. “It’s their clothes and their hair, and it’s probably the biggest complaint that nonsmokers who are either cohabitating or co-working with smokers have about smoking.” Weiss believes NJOY has addressed this trifecta of problems: the NJOY King doesn’t burn tobacco; one e-cig (about $8) lasts about as long as two packs of conventional cigarettes; and it’s odorless.

A Virtual Cigarette

When NJOY created its new e-cig, the goal for Mark Scatterday — the King’s developer and also a nonsmoker — was to essentially create a virtual cigarette. The King is the same length and diameter as a traditional cigarette. The ash tip resembles glowing embers when in use. The cigarette itself has a papery feel to it. The “filter” is even a bit squishy.

Scatterday and others realized that to make a successful cigarette replacement, it had to not just meet the chemical needs of the user — delivering nicotine, that is — but also reproduce the full experience of smoking. For many smokers, the feel of a cigarette, the hand-to-mouth movement, the taste, even the physical act of holding the pack are almost as important as the nicotine itself. That’s one reason nicotine gum and patches have such high failure rates. Scatterday says his priority was figuring out how to “bridge the gap between your typical e-cigarette and an analog cigarette.”

NJOY doesn’t make any health claims about its product, and its electronic cigarettes aren’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. E-cigarettes don’t burn tobacco, which means they don’t contribute to the wide array of deadly health problems related to smoking, which include lung cancer, stroke, heart attack, emphysema and high blood pressure.

A study released last year by researchers at the University of Athens has shown that the nicotine vapor in e-cigarettes led to an increase in airway resistance, making it harder to breathe and leading to lower levels of oxygen in participants’ bloodstream. Still, a number of doctors have come out in support of e-cigarettes as cessation devices for those wanting to quit; several have written publicly in support of NJOY and have criticized the methodology used in the University of Athens study.

But this much is clear: e-cigarettes are healthier than traditional cigarettes, and the three companies comprising Big Tobacco are beginning to either buy up electronic-cigarette companies or create their own versions.

Lorillard recently acquired e-cigarette maker Blu, which has an estimated 25% of e-cig market share, according to Wells Fargo’s Herzog. And Reynolds American is currently testing an electronic cigarette called Vuse. The only major tobacco manufacturer that hasn’t made a move is Altria, formerly Philip Morris, the maker of such brands as Marlboro, Parliament and Virginia Slims.

Analysts at both Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs compare the growth in electronic cigarettes to the boom in energy drinks. Many of the big beverage companies failed to foresee the future popularity in energy drinks and reacted too late. The same thing may be happening with e-cigarettes.

While NJOY is independent from the three major tobacco manufacturers, there are rumors that Altria will attempt a takeover of NJOY. But for now, NJOY executives seem more interested in taking down Big Tobacco than cooperating with it. “Cigarettes haven’t evolved in 70 years,” says Weiss. “The last product innovation was the filter in 1952 and the flip-top box in 1954.”

Weiss isn’t shy about his vision for NJOY. He doesn’t want to just compete with large tobacco companies. He wants to beat them. “Our mission at NJOY is to obsolete cigarettes,” he says. “Do I believe that’s possible? Absolutely.”

Great article i am a e-cig user and have been for last 4years it has helped me to quit smoking after 10 years.i built a website on e-cigs and if you will check it out at http://best-electronic-cigarette.net

Electronic Cigarette can be a good alternative of smoke, I used it for 2 years, I took the high strength tobacco flavor refills at the beginning, 1 year later I took
the medium, now I use the low strength, I wish that I use tobacco
nicotine free refill later this year, then it will much better for my
health. Electronic cigarette is good for smoker. If you are a smoke try
it, if you are not don't try.

It is challenging cigarette and i think e cigarette will won the race. Because "Changes spice of of life" so changing cigarette with e cigarette explore interest in use. Even e cigarette is healthier than real cigarette so people more like to use it.

no , they cant compete with tobacco companies, they have too much money, they can buy any person who works at the FDA, i use ecigared electronic cigarettes since two years ago, customer service is excellent, you can see it on www.ecigared.com

Btw... Vanilla is my favorite flavor followed by Tabeeco. If you're trying it, make sure you order her brand... Basic. Also... this battery turns on and off, you can use it while it's charging and USB to wall, car or computer for the recharge. It drags just like a cigarette! It's the best thing I ever did for myself... and a bunch of friends followed suit that never thought they would quit smoking.

I think electronic cigarettes can definetely challenge the big tobacco companies like British American Tobacco, and I heard that they are actually launching a version of a smoking ceasation device soon.

This e-cig brand possesses an exclusive atomizer called VaporMax that is
built inside the cartridges. This was done keeping in mind that when a
user will inhale large amount of vapor he or she will experience a
smooth flow of vapor.

I won't be surprised if a dozen new e-cigarette companies spring up in the next year or two, all hoping to get bought up. The interesting thing is that, there will likely be a few start-ups with innovative ideas since the pay-outs for technology could be huge if tobacco companies see the opportunity. I'm not a smoker of any kind, but a friend of mine said that http://www.myelectroniccigarettereviews.com/ helped him choose which company to try. 12 months later, he has weaned himself off of nicotine altogether. I think with the right mindset, e-cigs could be helpful. But the FDA is about to regulate the hell out of the industry, so let's see what happens after that.

The electronic cigarette is truly beneficial to myself and thousands of others. People want to quit and when they find something that works they stick with it. Banning them is nearly impossible taking in count how many people would oppose this.

E-cigarettes are not "taking on" Big Tobacco. As the article eventually points out, e-cigarettes are themselves Big Tobacco.

The unregulated, China-made units have merely acted as stalking horses for the tobacco industry, which appears to be transforming itself into the nicotine industry — with cigarettes, cigars, chewables, and suckables as the delivery devices.

There's increasing concern, internationally, that the industry's strategy is to start off entry-level users on multiple products, including candy-flavors — with the goal, as before, of profiting from lifelong nicotine addiction — and to keep nicotine levels and dependence up among adult smokers

Lorillard, Reynolds American and British American Tobacco can put unparalleled marketing muscle behind e-cigs. Meantime, consumers don't know the dosage, quality or safety of untested e-cig brands now being plugged on cable channels and the Web. Every month that federal rule-makers dither, the deeper the nicotine industry digs in.

So before you try an e-cig, ask yourself: "Why, exactly, would a tobacco company want to sell me this?"

I was a very, very heavy chain smoker for decades and was unable to quit. I started using ecigs 3 years ago and have not had a cigarette since. This sounds like some sort of spurious cheesy promo, but it's simply the truth, for me and MANY others. My health is far better than it was - my wind is back, wheezing and coughing long gone, and my lungs are clear; I feel terrific. I run! No significant craving for cigarettes even at the beginning (and I have repulsion now for the smell and taste of tobacco), no mood problems, nada. I've neither gained weight nor suffered the miserable symptoms that I suffered using patches, gum and many repeated cycles of abstinence.

The thing is, I'm very, very far from alone. In the huge internet forum to which I belong, there are thousands of similar reports ongoing. Some people have more difficulty than others in making the transition, but for most of us its been a huge, huge boon. Of course we're still using nicotine, we're perfectly aware of that, though far less - just as we'd be if using patches and other nicotine replacement products (with terrible track records). But nicotine isn't the big killer - tars and the many chemicals in tobacco smoke are. Research it.

Vapor is made of glycol, water, food flavoring and nicotine. That's it. It's flavored steam, and (to my endless surprise) it's very pleasant. At this point there are enough of us (most using products far, far superior to NJOYs and Blus) that word is getting around. My adult daughter, son-in-law and a number of clients also quit cigarettes, easily. I don't know where this will go legally but many of us are pretty well informed about the many issues at stake, and deeply hope that the huge players ($$) here won't harshly limit, prohibit or ruin the effectiveness of ecigs.

BTW, none of us who actually use this product, nor any vendor that I know of, would market this product to kids, nor is it really the sort of thing that is going to appeal to kids, flavored or not. Adults can keep cherry flavored medicine and chocolate liquor away from little ones (who in my experience are pretty disinterested in those items), and they are simply never going to be "cool", except to smokers desperate to replace their habit with something less deadly. There's an enormous amount of propaganda out there.

January marks my three year mark. I'm feeling wonderful. Best and most ingenious invention ever.

The headline asks, "Can Electronic Cigarettes Challenge Big Tobacco?" Given that e-cigs ARE Big Tobacco, I'd say that if they want to, they can, quite easily.

E-cigs, as currently marketed, are:

- a kinder, gentler way to addict vulnerable youth and get them to commit to a lifetime of emptying their bank accounts into those of the tobacco industry, while giving nothing but addiction to a toxic non-essential in return, and

- just another scam, like "light" cigarettes, designed to convince smokers that they don't really need to quit and vulnerable kids that using them is harmless and carries no consequences.

There is also no research proving conclusively that passive exposure in the concentrations and frequencies expected in public spaces if they gain acceptance is as safe as or safer than not being exposed.

Harm reduction minimizes harm to the user without interfering with protection, prevention, and cessation. Enabling rationalizes continued addiction at everyone's involuntary expense.

Although there is no doubt that e-cigs have excellent harm reduction potential, before we have all the facts on the long-term implications of free and wide-spread public use, we need to set and enforce strict regulations on:

And in a related story, European health studies are indicating that eCigarettes are not effective in helping people quit smoking. They're just substituting one nicotine delivery system for another. There is no "quitting" here.

Nicotine is an addictive drug that is poisonous to living things. But if nicotine disappeared from the face of the planet today, not a single person would die from nicotine withdrawals because no one in the history of the planet ever has from that.

So for those of you who say you "quit smoking" because you use eCigs not, I have some sad news - no you haven't. You're still addicted, still spending money on something your body doesn't need or want and still perpetuating a culture of addiction to your drug of choice. You're still "smoking".

Quitting means removing ALL crutches (hear that gum and patch users?) and devices that deliver the drug and removing all dependencies on that drug from one's life. THAT'S quitting smoking. Anything less is simply, sadly, self deception.

I find it wrong of NJOY that in the commercial they entirely pretend to be a real cigarette. It is somewhat glorifying which is not good. Electronic cigarettes are for current tobacco smokers only and should not even be advertised in any way to non-smokers.

I've finally quit using e-cigs (a mix of nJoy and not-nJoy) but I'd like to comment that most "vapers" (e-smokers) use flavors like banana, cinnamon, watermelon, and these flavors allowed them to leave their tobacco taste behind. The average age of these users seems to be about 50, so I think it is fallacious to think that the taste for flavors is unique to young people. In fact, young people seem to be less interested in ecigs than older people, unless their spouse is after them to quit. It's those of us whose cough is getting very noticeable after 20-40 years of smoking.

I quit smoking recently using ecigs called Greensmoke In the beginning I was smoking both electronic & regular cigarettes daily, as time passed I found myself smoking "real" cigarettes less & less and about a month after I started with the Greensmoke I threw out cigarettes altogether. Now I am totally satisfied with my ecigs and I am very thankful to the makers of greensmoke.

This is for sure the future for smokers. Even to cut down it is a great invention! I can breathe easier I dont smell and its actually cheaper.

@jpolansky Ecigs are to the analog what near beer is to the deadly alcoholic beverage. Big tobacco wants in on the e cig business only for the money the same reason they were and are willing to kill millions of Americans. How can you say that e cigarettes are big tobacco when there is NO TOBACCO in the e cigarette? I've been using mine for a year and I feel great and I can breathe again!!

@jpolansky If you want to get on the twenty-first century anti-addiction Puritan bandwagon you are going to also go after caffeine which is used far more then tobacco. The reason caffein is not demonized like tobacco is because it is widely considered to be low risk, though it isn't without some risk. It certainly is addictive.

Tobacco and nicotine without the smoke have a very close risk factor to caffeine. Modern smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes are at least 99% less harmful then inhaling smoke several hundred times a day. You appear to be under the illusion that addiction is causing disease, but that's not the case. It's how a person consumes tobacco/nicotine that makes all the difference in the world as to health outcomes. Get rid of the smoke and you get rid of 99% of the problem.

The reality is that every month federal rule-makers dither more people quit smoking and greatly enhance their health and well being. Smokeless tobacco sales continue to raise and electronic cigarette sales are doubling every year. The movement is to tobacco harm reduction. By standing in the way of tobacco harm reduction you are in fact working against improving public health.

@jpolansky Gee, a funny thing happened to me while Big Tobacco was forcing the Chinese to stalk me--I stopped smoking on March 27, 2009. And even stranger, my lung health began to improve. And then my cholesterol and BP went down to normal range. Now how could that possibly be true, in view of the fact that I was still taking in that horrible chemical nicotine? Doesn't nicotine cause lung disease, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer?

Actually, it doesn't. Sweden has the lowest lung cancer mortality rate (LCMR) in the EU. In fact, Sweden's LCMR for both men and women is only half that of the US rate. What's different over there? Do they take in a lot less nicotine than the US population?? Actually, no. Sweden's rate of tobacco use is much higher than the US, but the smoking prevalence rate is is down around 12%. Many Swedes, however, switched to a type of spit-free smokeless tobacco called snus. Population level research shows that snus users have no higher rates of any type of cancer, heart attacks, and strokes than former smokers who used the abstinence only method of quitting.

It turns out that the disease mechanism at work in smoking is the tar, carbon monoxide, particulates, and
thousands of chemicals created when organic material is burned--not the nicotine. What effect does nicotine have on health? It improves attention, concentration, and memory, and guards against feelings of depression and anxiety. It reduces aggression. It even has a preventive effect against developing dementia and movement disorders like Parkinson's. It doesn't impair thinking, judgment, and reaction time, which is why people don't get arrested for driving under the influence of nicotine.

Researchers now recognize that smokers who have an imbalance in brain chemistry (dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine) are self-medicating cognitive deficits and mood impairments with the nicotine, even though they don't realize that's happening. All they know is that unlike smokers who were able to just walk away from smoking with no ill effects, they become very ill when they stop using nicotine.

One bonus of switching to inhaled vapor is that unlike most former smokers, I am not plagued by cravings to smoke. In fact, after I gave up using tobacco flavors and switched to pleasant fruit flavors, I totally lost my taste for tobacco. Your concern about "the industry" starting kids off on pleasant flavors with the goal of turning them into addicts makes no sense. Is GlaxoSmithKline out to hook kids by selling yummy flavors of nicotine gum and lozenges? If a kid likes cherry or chocolate flavors, it's a lot cheaper and easier to eat cherries or a chocolate bar.

@universal93 Can we TRUST big tobacco not to pull any dirty tricks like put things in their e-cigarette solution to get us more hooked on their e-cigarette than anyone elses, even if what they add to their e cig is deadly to us? I mean, when it all hit the fan about all those 4000 deadly chemicals being in analogs they tried to cover it up and told lie after lie about the presence of anything harmfull or adictive being in cigarettes only to make an enormous profit on the loss of lives. My mother qhit smoking cold turkey over 40 years ago, and she had no idea that all those chemicals were in them and that was the 1970's. I don't think I would buy an e cig from phillip moris.

@confettifoot I second your statement. It's been a year using just e-cigs for me, and now I'm pleased to say my husband has just started on his for about a week now and he's doing very good with them as well. VAPE ON CONFETTIFOOT!

@bibleverse1 There is no tobacco in electronic cigarettes. The nicotine used is pharmaceutical grade, not manufactured by tobacco companies. They have been on the market for several years now, and only in the last several months have the tobacco companies shown any interest.

Conclusions: For all byproducts measured, electronic cigarettes produce very small exposures relative to tobacco cigarettes. The study indicates no apparent risk to human health from e-cigarette emissions based on the compounds analyzed.

@U92 While I agree with many of your points, and not some others, I must point out an incorrect statement in your comment:

There is also no research proving conclusively that passive exposure in the concentrations and frequencies expected in public spaces if they gain acceptance is as safe as or safer than not being exposed.

Please see the following peer-reviewed studies showing the lack of harmful levels of substances in so-called second-hand vapor:

@DeweySayenoffUnfortunately this is the ideological viewpoint of a "Nicotine Warrior". Yes, vapers are still using nicotine, however, they are no longer smoking. No more 3000+ poisons from tobacco smoke. If your concern is the health of the individual you should be encouraging people who smoke to switch to vaping. Its no about benefits to public health for you though, it's about forcing your ideals onto others. All you'll accomplish is taking a safe alternative off the market and force those vapers back to deadly tobacco. Hope you're proud.

@DeweySayenoff Everyone is addicted to something, money, food, caffine, nicotine, alcohol,sex,thrill seeking.......ect. My e-cig is a delivery system to keep MY adiction just that, MY adiction. It is the burning of the tobbaco and 3999 other chemicals that is bad for you, not the nicotine. Nicotine is a stimulant, not a cancer causing,heart disease rendering, artery clogging stick of death as I like to call analogs. Please educate yourself before you put down something you know very little about. By the way, what are YOU adicted to? I think it's complaining just to hear yourself complain lol.

@DeweySayenoff No, my friend, that's quitting NICOTINE. Quitting SMOKING means to sop inhaling smoke. Switching to any non-smoked nicotine delivery system eliminates taking in tar, carbon monoxide, particulates, and thousands of chemicals created by the process of combustion. These are the elements that cause the lung diseases, heart attacks, strokes, and cancers that are specifically smoking-related (but which government organizations are now inaccurately calling "tobacco-related".) Those of us who have stopped inhaling smoke are seeing the improvements in our lung function, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. Why do you believe that your concern about our "addiction" is more important than our concern about avoiding cancer, lung disease, and cardiovascular disease?

@DeweySayenoff E-cigs are no worse than those addicted to drinking coffee every day (or soda, etc.). And if one can reduce the harm they are causing themselves and others by switching to this alternative, then what difference does it make to you? They either switch partially or completely, and then either keep vaping the e-cig or taper off. Either way, it's not hurting you at all. I've switched and reduced my nicotine levels from 24mg/ml down to 6-8mg/ml now. I feel loads better, no longer have that morning cough, or nighttime wheezing, and nothing smells like an ashtray anymore. So, yes, I beg to differ, I DID quit smoking, because now I VAPE (as it is vapor, and not smoke), and I'm no longer ingesting over 4000 chemicals (some in the cigarette, and many created by the combustion of the tobacco). And nicotine at these levels are NOT poisonous. Anything is poisonous if over-indulged; caffeine, vitamins, sugar, even water. So necessary or not should not be the issue, the issue is, what do we do for all these crazy smokers who can't or won't quit? Try to get them to use something less harmful, like e-cigs (or snus or dissovables; but that's another article). Nicotine isn't the problem - smoking is.

@DeweySayenoff you need to look at it from another point of view. I quit smoking analogues with e-cigarettes, within 3 months i gradually reduced my nicotine intake. The final two months i just puffed with zero nicotine. After that i just stopped using it. Dont forget that some people really DO enjoy smoking and this is a way to do it with minimal damage or at least yet to be proven otherwise. I thank my lucky stars that i bumped into the ecig a few years back, truly do.

@KaryylKeystone that's just one of the many angles used by goverments/big pharma,etc, an example is that e-cigarette companies are forbidden to mention terms like 'it can help you quit smoking'. I did just that after 25 years, i dont smoke ecigs or analogues anymore, nothing anyone can say will change my mind. All you need is to be committed (not as much as cold turkey of course) and gradually reduce until it just doesn't do anything anymore. personally i found it more of a task than a pleasure in the last days of smoking my ecig.

@Stern Glad to hear from a fellow Greensmoke user. They seem to be the best brand out there,and believe me, I've tried a ton of them before finding greensmoke and I'm glad I did happen across the gs reviews on youtube.com, they're an amazing e-cig!

@jackblack6969@KaryylKeystone I had not had enough coffee when I wrote that. I've finally quit combustibles as of New Years Day, with the help of e-cigs. But I need more than 1 flavor to do it, and the "alt" flavor is fruit. More-importantly, most of my forum buddies vape non-tobacco flavors and report they NEEDED that to quit.

So I don't want people to get the idea that flavors are for kids. They are not. They are for people who see oxygen tanks on their horizon if we don't quit combustibles.

@KaryylKeystone@jackblack6969 I like to switch up between Greensmoke and their 1.8 mg nicotine red lable brand and I also use a V2 battery with the 555 tobacco flavor from smokeless image. The 555 are awesome and very close to the taste of an analog . I use the 555 on a V2 battery because I think the smokeless image Volt battery doesn't have a very good draw, it's kind of like sucking air through a straw very little resistance so since SI's 555 cartos fit the V2's much better battery, I just use them together. Also, Smokeless image sells their cartos a pack of five for 8.95, that's a huge savings on alot of other cartos. Warning, if you order the 555 tobacco flavor, they smell like popcorn or corn chips, but they tast awesome especially with a cup of coffee! Hope this helps.